//------------------------------// // In which Ryoga punches royalty. // Story: Not all who wander... // by TDR //------------------------------// Not All Who Wander By TDR Part 3 In which Ryoga punches royalty. Ryoga often cursed his luck. Not as often as his arch enemy Ranma did, but more than any other person did as far as he knew. Still he had used up a nice collection of curse words in all seven of the languages he knew after he turned a corner and the five mares were not there to be followed. “......Damn it.” Ryoga concluded his tirade. He looked around the room he had wound up in. It looked like some old ballroom or something. It had a long open hall and a raised dais on one side that had some old collapsed settings and rusted poles and tubes for some long removed equipment. Many thought Ryoga rather dim in truth. Coupling his lack of a formal education, his constant wanderings and the fact his go to method of dealing with something that bothered him was brute force, had led to a somewhat misinformed view on his intelligence. Granted how often he was easily tricked by Ranma didn't help either. Still this was not a entirely true belief. While he was far more focused on things, and quite emotional his life on the road had taught him quite a lot beyond simple survival. Over time he had developed a plethora of skills and talents from the odd jobs he picked up to survive and make money, as well as a ridiculous collection of assorted martial arts, from small schools he had run across and learned from. As such, with his glance around the old room he realized he was in an old observatory of some kind that had long been abandoned. He knew this from his time training with the Galileo School of Martial Arts Astrologers. It had been a strange group, adopting poses of combat from star signs and claiming they gained more power during certain planetary alignments. He had even had one of them try and predict his path in life with their skills, but evidently no one could find his star sign in the sky when they looked. Ryoga moved out onto a balcony pushing aside some hanging vines with a hoof. He blinked confused as he noticed this was the tallest structure still standing in this place, which was weird because he didn't recall running up any stairs. He also finally got a good look at where he was. It looked like an old ruined castle in the middle of a forest. The moon was high in the sky which was odd given he thought it was early morning, but he wasn't too surprised given he had evidently walked through a spring of drowned horse and not noticed. There was a large mountain in the distance that he didn't recognize and he could see lights near the top as if there was a settlement there. “Where on earth am I this time?” Ryoga muttered. A sudden flare of energy tickled his senses as a flash of light lit up the tower behind him. Turning around and poking his head through the vines he was greeted to the sight of a purple unicorn rushing at a much bigger dark unicorn.. pegasus thing. He wasn't sure what that one was. A flying unicorn? A Pegicorn? A Unisus? What he was sure of was, that between the coloration, the dark swirling vortex of hair, and the way she spoke with a uppity tone, were a hallmarks of most of the villains that he had encountered during his travels with the others. Either that or she was a Kuno. He sighed at the sudden pang of depression that hit him as he thought back about all those fights with the others. His eyes half closing as he shook it off and focused his attention on the conflict in front of him. The two charged each other racing across the floor before the smaller one vanished in a flash of light. He blinked at the surge of what felt like some sort of chi. Following the feel of it as the large one looked around he spotted the purple one fussing with some stones on the raised dais behind the darker one. The rocks floated a little before dropping back to the ground as the purple one seemed to start to panic at what ever had happened failing. The dark horse let out evil laugh number four and smacked the purple mare away with her mane. She turned to lord herself over the smaller horse raising her hooves to slam them down and shatter the stone balls the purple mare had been after, destroying them. Ryoga considered, still standing on the balcony as the dark horse ranted, she was taller than the other ones, maybe they were ponies, were horses evil around here? That made him smirk as he considered Ranma's name's meaning. The horse was hitting evil rant number three, evidently she kidnapped the princess the others were talking about and the sun? Was that a metaphor? Maybe son, not sun? Ryoga listened to the rant. Nope that was sun with that whole night lasting for ever thing. What the heck school of martial arts was this? “And now Twilight Sparkle. You shall share the fate of all that oppose me.” Nightmare Moon growled , her horn glowing brightly as she ripped a large pillar out of the floor, the ceiling over it collapsing with a crash of tile and shattered stone as she heft the massive several ton pillar in the air as if it was nothing, brandishing it like a fly swatter. “Don't worry , I'll make sure your little companions join you soon.” Nightmare Moon cackled bringing the pillar down on top of the shocked purple mare. “BAKUSAI TENKETSU!!” Nightmare Moon's eyes widened at the shout. She had barely caught the movement by the balcony as she brought down the pillar. She was familiar with the language, but what did 'Explosive breaking point hole ' even mean and why scream it. Was it that pegasus? She was certainly fast enough to have zipped across the room like that, but if she did it just to push Twilight out of the way, why shout, and better still did she manage to be quick enough to rescue the unicorn and herself or just push Twilight out of the way, perhaps she didn't even succeed in that. Still if either of them were dead the risk to Nightmare Moon was no more. The impact of the stone against the floor had caused the old masonry to shatter filling the air of the room with dust. Nightmare snorted remaining as she was as she cautiously looked around for the source of the odd shout. Her green eyes widening as the dust cleared and a orange earth pony stood between Twilight and Nightmare Moon, dusting the remains of the utterly destroyed chunk of stone from his black mane and the tiger patterned bandanna he wore. “What?!” “You know this is really none of my business, but I've got some issue about the strong picking on those weaker than themselves.” Ryoga stated tilting his head a little back and forth cricking his neck. He hadn't been sure that he could break the point on the stone with his hooves as he never practiced as a pig, but clearly his skills translated fairly well even as a horse.” I'm not really in a mood for this . So I'm going to give you this chance to back down.” “You dare defy me.... ?!?”Nightmare Moon growled.” DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM!?!” Ryoga thought back over all the villains he had met and didn't place any to match this one. So he considered the small group he had encountered and what one of them had called this one. “Black Snooty?” Ryoga asked with a shrug. The mare was not amused. The dark unicorn charged her horn, firing off blasts of magic towards him as she snarled. Ryoga slid back snapping open his umbrella and stood in front of the dazed purple mare as the spells slammed into the red umbrella. “What... how did you do that?” Twilight gasped knowing the type of spells Nightmare Moon had thrown at her. “No idea.” Ryoga offered, looking down at his hooves that were some how holding the umbrella. “ Well okay, stay behind this or run. I'll deal with her.” The orange stallion moved off and Twilight blinked. “Umm, hey, err sir? “ Twilight called. “Yeah?” Ryoga looked back over his shoulder. “Nightmare Moon is over there.” She pointed a hoof in the opposite direction of where the stallion was going. “Oh... right . Thanks.” Ryoga looked over and refocused on what he now knew was Nightmare Moon. Yup that was a villain name. Well. It could still be a Kuno. Nightmare Moon frowned as she looked at the stallion. Who was this? Where had he even come from? What was with that stupid umbrella? Those shots should have melted simple cloth or canvas or whatever. “You know I'm not really used to fighting on all fours and I don't really like hitting girls.... not sure if that counts for ponies, but I'm having a bad day and I'll give it a go if you persist, still it might be better if you gave up and returned the princess or whatever else you took.” The stallion stated simply as he moved from behind the umbrella leaving it on the floor. “You have made a grave mistake little pony.” Nightmare Moon snarled watching as the pony reached up into his mane with a hoof. “Leave now before I tear you heart out and crush it.” The stallion let out a humorless laugh.”Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.” “What?” Nightmare Moon blinked in confusion before throwing herself to the side at the feel of a small flickers of energy forming near the stallion. A series of orange blades tore through the air where she had been standing, the whirling weapons digging into the stone where she had been. A glance down showed copies of his bandanna stiff as steel and embedded into the stone. The faint flickers of energy that came from them faded away as the cloth flopped softly to the floor. “What?” Nightmare Moon asked again, startled, before she was forced to rear up barely dodging the stallions hoof slamming down at her, pulverizing the stone floor before her. She flapped her wings launching herself backwards and taking to the air to try and gain some distance and figure this out. The green eyed stallion lept into the air after her, the forty foot hop barely seeming to take any effort from the stallion. Nightmare Moon gasped as the stallion was back to being face to face with her, his hoof lashing out again. She brought up her forelegs to block, the impact of his hoof against her legs making her scream out in pain as she was belted out of the air and sent smashing into the stone dais below her destroying it with the impact. Ryoga landed lightly and looked over at the crushed stone work, feeling the whole tower shake from the impact. This felt weird to him. If this was the big bad, it felt odd to be fighting the main bad guy for once rather than his second in command like he usually did. He was also surprised how much he could do like this. Maybe he should have done more training while he was the pig. Still it didn't feel correct to him, fighting like this, but so far he was making do simply by letting his body act naturally without thinking much on it, relying on this forms reflexes more than trying to force it to do what he thought was right. That had helped him in the past as the pig, though he knew he couldn't rely on that. His skills were suffering. “You dare strike ME!?!?” Case in point. The rubble Nightmare Moon had been flung into exploded up ward showering the area with rocks and dust. The mare screamed out in inarticulate rage and charged her horn firing off a blast that reminded Ryoga of Ranma's Hiryo Shotan Ha, though clearly not as dangerous. He side stepped the blast letting it blow a hole in the wall next to him making the tower shudder again. “TWILIGHT!” Ryoga spared a glance towards the voice, taking note of the others he met earlier running up behind the purple mare. Good maybe they would get her out of here. He brought up a fore limb blocking a blow from the mare that sent him skidding to the side a few feet over the stone. He was rather impressed at the blow as thus far this Nightmare seemed all magical threat. Still no need to tell her that, she was already pissed off. “If that was your best strike. You might want to reconsider giving up.” Ryoga offered. Nightmare Moon screamed at him lunging at him firing random blasts of magic and lashing out at him. With her wings and forelegs. Ryoga blocked the physical attacks without too much trouble, though the magical attacks forced him to move and dodge and stay on the defensive. He took note of the other mares he had met earlier surrounding the purple one listening to her explain something. There was a powerful aura from that direction that was growing stronger , but he couldn't tell who it was coming from with all the other magic being thrown at him. Probably the pink one. Nightmare Moon suddenly vanished from in front of him making Ryoga snap his attention back to the fight. He didn't see her at all until he heard the pop behind him. He whirled around getting a full view of equine rump showing exactly where the dark mare's odd purple butt tattoos came together. He jerked back a little feeling a trickle of blood from his nose just before a pair of powerful rear hooves slammed into his midsection as Nightmare bucked him. Both hooves connected sending Ryoga flying across the room, smashing into and through the far wall. With a loud cry of panic Ryoga realized he was falling out of the sky towards the deep ravine that surrounded the old castle. “Well that takes care of that.” Night mare moon smirked at the stallion's scream as he fell from the tower. That smile quickly faded as her head whipped around seeing the broken Elements of Harmony floating around five of the six mares. “WHAT?!” Ryoga growled to himself as he crawled out of the river. His side still hurt from the kick, but he had suffered far worse impacts in his fights with Ranma. Still this gave him plenty of reminder he shouldn't get distracted. That was something that was always used against him it seemed even as a little horse. Ryoga frowned. Thinking about those past battles made him depressed again. He lay on his back looking up at the sky for a while before he blinked in surprise as the sun shot up into the air like some one had thrown it. That was very odd. It rated at least a seven on the weirdest stuff he had seen. Well that was something to look into later, or not. He really should get back and make sure that Nightmare Horse thing was really beaten. He rolled over to his hooves. He had never even heard of a spring of magical talking crayon colored horse. But there was probably a very tragic story of a crayon horse drowning there one thousand years ago. Or something like that. Wait. Something was odd. Was the ground always this close when he had been a horse? “Bweee?” Ryoga asked no one in particular, his eyes widening as he took note that he was a very familiar little black pig. “BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” P-chan screamed in rage at the universe mocking him again. The shift of the brush at the edge of the river bank he was on revealed something else there as the pig screamed his frustration and anger into the air. A large cat like monster that looked like a lion had crept out of the woods. It's wings flat against its back and it's scorpion tail poised to strike the little snack before it. P-chan whirled quickly on it, his snout meeting the nose of the manticore, his eyes glaring, with a rage that promised many unpleasant things, at the large feline. The piglet seemed to be urging the manticore to 'Try it and see what happens.' The manticore stared down at the piglet, who kept it's steeled and threatening gaze on the larger beast. The maniticore blinked and lowered it's tail, backing away as it decided to find something less threatening to eat... like an ursa. The timber wolves P-chan encountered a little while later however as he was looking for a kettle, were much less intimidated.